George Culmer (Chair):
Ok, good morning everybody. And obviously apologies for the slightly late start. I don’t think I need to give a reason as to why that is – I’m sure you’re all aware – but look, we’re here now and we’re able to get going so many thanks for coming on this wonderful day in York. It’s always like this, I was told!
Good morning everyone, and welcome to Aviva’s 2026 Annual General Meeting. I am George Culmer, your Chair, and it’s very good to see you all today. I can confirm that, in line with our Articles of Association, we have the necessary quorum of shareholders joining on Lumi and in person.
Your Notice of Meeting sets out today’s resolutions and is taken as read. I now declare the poll open on all resolutions and it will remain open for the duration of the meeting and 10 minutes thereafter.
Getting underway then, this is the second time we have hosted our AGM here in York. It is a city with which Aviva has a long and proud association, and today our presence here is as important as ever. These meetings are always a significant moment in our calendar: a chance for our shareholders to hear directly from us about how our business is doing and an opportunity for you to raise the issues that are on your mind.
Alongside me this morning is your Group CEO, Amanda Blanc; our CFO, Charlotte Jones; our Chief Corporate Governance Officer, Susan Adams; Pippa Lambert, whose birthday it is, who’s Chair of our Remuneration Committee; and Patrick Flynn, our Senior Independent Director and Chair of our Audit Committee.
The Board believes that all the resolutions being proposed are in the best interests of the Company and its shareholders and therefore recommends that you vote in favour of them.
In terms of some housekeeping, for security, health and safety reasons, we have two in-person meeting rooms today – this room, and another meeting space located on this floor.
By way of reminder on the procedure for voting: for online attendees, the resolutions and voting options should appear on your screen under the vote icon. For those of you attending in-person and who are entitled to vote, you will have been given a voting handset at registration and a summary of the resolutions should now be available on the screen. To vote online, simply select one of the options to cast your vote. Your selected choice will be highlighted and a ‘vote received’ message will appear, confirming your vote has been cast. To change your vote, reselect your choice. To cancel your vote, select the ‘cancel’ button and you will be able to do so whilst the vote remains open.
Those voting in person, use the trackball to scroll through the list of resolutions: press the green square button to select a resolution. Use the trackball to move to your chosen voting option and, once highlighted, press the green square button again to submit your vote. If you wish to change or cancel your vote, press the ‘X’ button and then re-enter your selection: you may do this at any time while the vote remains open. If you have any problems, please raise your hand and a member of the team will be on hand to help. If you have already submitted your votes prior to the meeting by proxy and do not wish to change the way you voted, you do not need to resubmit your vote.
As is customary, I will shortly ask Amanda to share her thoughts on how Aviva has done over the last 12 months, as well as outlining some of the opportunities that lie ahead. I don’t think I’ll be stealing Amanda’s thunder, though, by saying that 2025 was another outstanding year. We’ve continued to serve our customers well. We’ve delivered another very strong financial performance and we have raised our ambitions for the future with new three-year targets that reflect the strength of the business.
I wrote in our recent Annual Report that it feels like we are entering a new chapter for Aviva and perhaps the most exciting element of the story is that, despite the progress of the last few years, I believe that the years ahead will be even better. Our diversified capital-light model, our performance momentum, our track record of delivery, our unique position in our markets, our trusted brand and, most importantly, our outstanding people – all of these combine to give me great confidence in what lies ahead.
There are many opportunities available to us, and Amanda and her team have set the business up to take advantage of them. Customers can know that we’ll be with them when it matters, while shareholders can depend on us for long-term value. To give a little more detail on all those things, Amanda, it is over to you.
Dame Amanda Blanc (Group Chief Executive Officer):
Thank you, George, and good morning to everyone.
It’s great to have you with us today, whether you are here in York or joining us online. I am very pleased to share that Aviva has delivered another outstanding set of results in 2025, extending our multi-year track record of delivery and achieving our 2026 targets a full year early. We have enormous potential to go even further for the longer term and I believe we are set up to make the most of the opportunities right across the market. I will cover some of those in more detail shortly.
Aviva’s excellent performance is in no small part due to the hard work and dedication of our people. Whether they are in the UK, Ireland or Canada, the whole Aviva team is committed to delivering for our customers, which means we can deliver for you, our shareholders, so I want to thank all our colleagues for what they have achieved.
2025 was a great year for Aviva. Operating profit rose 25%; IFRS return on equity increased, and capital and cash generation are growing. We now have over 25 million customers and an opportunity to serve even more of their needs with over seven million of those customers being multi-product holders.
Our final dividend of 26.2 pence per share is up 10% year-on-year, and we have also resumed the share buyback, now at a higher level of £350 million. Importantly, every business contributed to these results.
In General Insurance, premiums were up 18%. In Wealth, we extended our No. 1 position, with over £230 billion of assets and record net flows of almost £11 billion. In Health, we grew in-force premiums by double-digits. And, in Retirement, we wrote £4.6 billion of bulk annuities at attractive returns, supported by real asset origination in Aviva investors. Our strong, consistent performance, combined with our powerful diversified model, means that we are well set up to make the most of opportunities across the market.
So we have raised our ambitions to go even further. In November last year we set new three-year targets across operating EPS, IRFS return on equity, and cash remittances. These now include Direct Line and better reflect our trajectory as a diversified, capital-light business, but this is just the next step on our journey. There is much more potential to unlock beyond this three-year horizon and today I will touch on just three opportunities.
First, Insurance. Aviva is the only player operating at scale across personal and commercial lines. And we have the technical expertise, proprietary data, brand strength and diversified Group model to grow profitably – and there is plenty of room to grow, unlocking value from Direct Line, expanding partnerships, growing SME in Canada and building our Lloyds presence, not to mention the opportunity with our 25 million customers.
Secondly, in Wealth, which is a huge opportunity for us. There is £2.7 trillion worth of assets today, growing at double-digits, and the market is set to surpass £4 trillion by 2030. We have leading Workplace and Adviser Platform businesses. And we are expanding fast in advice with Succession Wealth and in Direct Wealth. Since 2022, we have grown assets faster than the market. We are on track for our £280 million Wealth profit ambition in 2027, and Wealth will soon account for almost 10% of Group earnings.
And finally, Artificial Intelligence. We know that it is going to be transformational and here at Aviva we have a greater opportunity than most. With millions of customers, the ability to deploy and re-use at scale, our capacity to invest and, most importantly, proprietary customer and claims data, means we are well positioned for this shift.
This technology is not new to us. We have been using traditional AI capability for over a decade now and our targeted investments are delivering tangible benefits. For example, we have reduced the time taken to review each case in medical underwriting by 50% and, in General Insurance, our GenAI claims summarisation tool is used by over 500 handlers and has halved the time that customers are on hold. We are now reusing this capability in Ireland and IWR, and our focus is turning to bigger opportunities where AI can transform core areas like customer service, underwriting and operations.
So to bring all of this together, Aviva is in a strong position not just for the next few years but we are uniquely placed for longer-term success.
We are the UK’s diversified insurer. We are accelerating our capital-light businesses. We have an outstanding customer franchise of more than 25 million customers globally and we are the UK’s most trusted insurance brand. We have proprietary data at scale, driving better customer outcomes and all of this fuels strong, sustainable growth with superior returns for you, our shareholders.
These strengths, and many more, give me deep confidence that we will unlock the full potential of our business in the years ahead.
George Culmer (Chair):
I hope you all found that useful. Now we have an opportunity to consider the resolutions and cast your vote.
I will take the Notice of Meeting as read. However, I would like to draw your attention to the items of business, so a bit of process now.
Firstly, Resolution 1, the Directors are proposing to receive and consider the Annual Report for the financial year ended 31 December 2025.
Resolution 2 is proposed to approve the Directors’ Remuneration Report, and Resolution 3, to approve the Directors’ Remuneration Policy.
Resolutions 4 and 5 ask shareholders to approve Aviva’s Annual Bonus Plan and Long Term Incentive Plan.
In resolution 6, the Directors are proposing to approve the Company’s Climate-Related Financial Disclosures for 2025.
Resolution 7, the Directors are recommending a final dividend for the year ended 31 December 2025 of 26.2p per share, and the dividend is payable on Thursday, 14 May 2026, to ordinary shareholders whose names are on the register of members at the close of business on Friday, 27 March, subject to the conditions set out in the Notice.
Resolutions 8-20 concern the re-election of all Directors. In resolutions 21 and 22, the Directors are seeking approval for the re-appointment of Ernst & Young as our auditor, and authorisation for the Audit Committee to determine their remuneration.
Resolution 23 covers political donations. This customary authority is sought to avoid inadvertently contravening the Companies Act, which has very wide definitions of political donations and political expenditure. I know that shareholders have raised concerns in the past about the Company seeking authority for this matter, and I would like to remind shareholders that it is not the Company’s policy to make political donations or incur political expenditure, and it has no intention of doing so.
Resolutions 24 and 25 refer to the authority conferred on the Directors to allot ordinary shares.
Resolution 26 relates to the disapplication of pre-emption rights and seeks authority within the Pre-emption Group’s guidelines to give the Board maximum flexibility in order to raise capital.
Resolution 27 relates to the authority for the Company to purchase its own shares.
Resolution 28 relates to the adoption of new Articles of Association. A copy of the proposed new Articles has been made available on the Company website and is available for inspection.
Resolution 29 relates to the authorisation of the Company to call General Meetings other than an AGM on no less than 14 clear days’ notice.
Now, as a final reminder, if you have not placed your votes, please do so now, and voting will remain open for a further ten minutes after the meeting is closed. Once you have submitted votes on all resolutions, please return your voting handset to Lumi on your way out.
The final results will be announced to the London Stock Exchange and posted on the Company’s website as soon as possible.
With that, thanks to you all for taking part. Thanks for your patience, we have gone on longer than expected. Obviously there have been a few disruptions, but thank you ever so much for your patience and for the quality of questions asked, and thank you very much for your time.
That is the end of the meeting. Thank you.
